


Yet this inconstancy is such / As you too shall adore;

by JoCarthage



Category: Supernatural
Genre: BAMF!Castiel, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-10
Updated: 2012-07-10
Packaged: 2017-11-09 13:16:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/455859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoCarthage/pseuds/JoCarthage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>I could not love thee, dear, so much,</i><br/>Loved I not honor more.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>(How I wish Dean had found out about Castiel's deal with Crowley.) Nothing non-con happens, but there's a moment where it looks like it might and it could be triggering. Serious Dean!Whumpage, so don't read if that's upsetting. (I find it upsetting too, but my headspace was darksome today).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yet this inconstancy is such / As you too shall adore;

There was a time; a moment, when Dean was completely certain Castiel would come for him. A shape in the growing darkness behind the head of the demon who was choking him out seemed to be a beige trench coat. He thought he heard the whip of wings over the raging drumbeat of his blood in his ears as he struggled for breath. His heart had decided he would be saved and his senses did their best to confirm it for him.

He wasn't.

\--

When Dean woke up, he was covered in blood, mostly his own. A punch to the face had preceded the demon's hand wrapping around his throat. In breaking, his nose had sprayed blood all over his face. It had dried to a flaky, tight texture which crumbled when he scrunched his face to evaluate the damage. He immediately wished he hadn't done that. He was seated, with his wrists roped together behind his back, shoulders aching from being long held back.

He sucked air, what breath he could draw in that position aching as it gushed past his cracked ribs. Aside from his broken face and the remainders of what he was sure were boot-prints on his chest, he was relatively unharmed. He listened first, trying to hear if there was company.

The sound of rain high above him tink-tink-tinkling on single window panes and echoing across a large space made him think: _warehouse_. He didn't hear breathing or footsteps or a blade being honed. He chanced opening his eyes and found he was alone, he was in a cavernous wooden space with steel beams, and it was raining through the glistering sun.

He wrenched around, pre-ignoring the singes of pain from his hurt ribs and looked up, seeing he was roped around a drain-pipe painted the same peeling sky-blue as the warped wall behind him. He was still dressed in the clothes he last remembered wearing though he couldn't feel the pressure of his knife in its sheath in the back of his pants or of his gun in his hip-holster. He twitched his shoulders, and as near as he could feel he still had his pocket knife, though what good it could do him in his inside front jacket pocket was not immediately clear.

The knots on his hands were solid, tight enough to restrain but he could feel his fingers. He determinedly did not wonder why the demon had taken such care to restrain him and and then leave him alone. Instead he concentrated on rotating his wrists, trying to increase the give in the ropes.

No joy.

He heard a door open and whipped his head around, seeing the demon who'd strangled him stalking towards him over the worn out floor. He glared, and started prepping himself to get through a beating and keep his head in a fighting space.

The demon doesn't disappoint. Saying nothing, the only sounds for the next 20 minutes are his feet connecting with Dean's legs and torso. Never kicking hard enough to break the big bones in his leg and keeping away from the smaller, more delicate ones in his hands and feet, the demon works his way up and down Dean's body.

Dean glares are him the whole time, and doesn't say a word. He would never beg, but he had little hope of getting the demon to slip this early in the torture and give him some indication of his plans. Dean had never been able to go somewhere nicer when his body was getting wrecked, never been able to fully disassociate but he spent the attack trying to keep from slipping into the unending scream his mind had become in hell, trying to think of ways this was different, trying to keep this night from throwing him back into helpless agony.

Dean realized the demon was no longer kicking him when he looked up, and saw him standing back, head cocked in a familiar way. The demon squats down and reaches out a hand, blunt fingertips heading for Dean's cheek. He jerks his head away, keeping the demon in his peripheral vision. He can't get far enough back and the demon trickles its fingers down the side of his jaw, rough on his neck before tracing the necklace of bruises he had left when he'd strangled Dean. Dean slowly turned his head back, hate in his eyes but unwilling to guess where this was going.

The demon's hand continued to drift down, glancing over his chest inside his shirt and settling with a thick palm on his waist.

The demon leaned into him, whispering:

"There's nothing you can do, Winchester."

Dean head butted him and spat blood into his face, kicking out at his kneecap even as his own legs screamed in protest. He heard the demon's joint pop out with a crack and a howl. He grinned viscously, and the crackle of his own blood on his lips was the last thing he felt before blackness came from a fist to his face.

Dean Winchester woke up again, this time on his side and naked. He felt black and blue but as he rolled his shoulders found nothing worse had happened to him since he was last conscious. He saw the pipe he'd been tied to a dozen feet away, saw his own blood outlining where he'd lain in a sloppy nimbus.

He lifted his head, looking around. He saw he was inside a pentagram, candles at the intersections at each of the lines. _Pottery Barn must make a killing from demon rituals_ , he thought. The pounding in his head told him he had a concussion, and the flares of agony racing up his nerves told him the earlier beating had been just as bad as he remembered.

"Awake, boy?"

Dean grunted, struggling to lever himself into a sitting position with his arms roped behind his back, concrete chapping his bare ass and ankles and knees as he managed it. It was the same demon, this time with three others. Along with his burly captor was a pretty blond in a suit, a tall, thin black man, and a heavier brunette in a purple-paisley earth-mother dress.

"Fuck you." Dean said, straightening his spine the rest of the way and staring down his attackers. 

"Nope." The lead demon said. "We need you pure for the ceremony. Well, as pure as you gutter gum sucking hunters can get."

He began chanting, his companions trailing herbs from their hands in concentric circles around the symbol where Dean had been thrown. He considered scratching out part of the pentagram, invalidating the spell, but he couldn't feel any energy building inside it. He looked over the symbols, and realized with a start they were Enochian. _What are demons doing using Enochian_? He began to translate, roughly and fast. _Banishing--no, "not banishing"--Summoning? Summoning_ _Friend_. _Source, no, aquifer? No, fertilizer-food-battery-home--garrison? Garrison. Leader._ He had only the basest grasp of Enochian vocabulary and none of its grammar, but it looked like a spell to compel an angel to appear, a specific angel.

The demon with the blond hair carefully stepped over the lines of the pentagram, avoiding both the candles and the paint, and grabbed Dean by the hair. Shoving him on his right side, he saw the flash of a paring knife as she moved in and peeled off a piece of skin on his shoulder. He grunted in pain and struggled but just as soon as she'd got a piece of him she let him go and stepped away too quickly to hit. Holding it between her fingers, which Dean now saw were wearing bulky gardening gloves, she walked over to the lead demon and dropped it into the small brass bowl in his hands. A trickle of blood running down his arm made Dean glance over to confirm, but she'd taken a slice of skin from the middle of the scar tissue where Cas had-- _Oh, God no_.

He knew his ribs kept the angels from finding him and the demons had taken his phone when they'd taken his pants, but he prayed as hard as he could. _Cas, don't do it man, it's a trap. Come in some other way--don't let them take you_. If they were summoning an angel, maybe they had some way to hurt him, kill him. _No! Cas, stay away!_

The demons were shouting now, the heavier one pouring oil in a wide circle around the pentagram and herbs, taking care never to touch even its vessel with her bare hands. A dank wind was blurring their forms and the candles. The lead demon picked a lighter out of his pocket and with a final shout lit it and threw it into the circle of oil. It blazed up, stunning Dean's dark-adjusted eyes which only cleared to let him see the blurry back of a certain angel, standing square and dark between his body and the demons three.

Castiel's trench coat was whipping in the dying wind of the spell, fists clenched. Dean didn't know if he knew he was here, and decided he would rather be naked and standing than naked and sprawled when Cas did turn around. He eased himself to sitting again and to his knees, deep bruises groaning at the increased pressure, and got to his feet. The pain made him short of breath, and so when he stumbled to stand at Castiel's side he forgave himself for the tightness in his chest when his friend's brutally glorious eyes met his. Underneath that Dean could see horror and hardness and fury. He looked Dean up and down and, with a glance to the demons who were standing and watching him, he nodded at Dean before turning back to the demons.

Dean thought he was going to ignore him to focus on the fight to come, but then he felt the cool pressure of an angel blade between his wrists and his bonds gave way. He stuffed a grimace as his too-long held shoulders shifted into a more natural position but no less painful position. He nodded at Castiel with thanks in his eyes. Castiel slipped his blade back into his Grace and shrugged his overcoat off, holding it out for Dean to take. When Dean's battered arms couldn't get with the program fast enough, Cas stepped in front of him, turning his back on the demons and shielding Dean. His face was an entirely new set of emotions now they couldn't see him--shared fear and concern, with that undercurrent of terminally irritated angel which was his base emotion.

Castiel gently picked up Dean's right arm and slipped it into the sleeve, hand light on the darkening bruises. He tried to keep the rough cloth from scraping Dean's open wound, but it still did when he pulled the coat up around his shoulders. Dean swayed, blood-loss and quick shifts of adrenaline endangering his balance, and Castiel laid his hands firmly on the hunter's shoulders, staring him in the eyes. His face hardened at what he saw there and Cas nodded again, folding the front of the coat over itself, buttoning with one oversized button--the only one which could reach across Dean's larger frame--so Dean was entirely covered before turning around to face their aggressors.

Dean could feel his mutilated shoulder begin to stick and soak the coat, but straightened and stepped up to Castiel side again.

"You will not get whatever it is you want. You will die, not returning to hell, not able to live on earth, but be dead forever." Castiel's voice was matter-of-fact. Dean shivered, remembering his first days knowing Cas, hearing threats in just that tone and believing them: he was right to believe him then and they would be right to believe him now.

"Big hat, no cattle," the brown-haired woman said. "You can't do shit all alone in that holy fire."

Castiel cocked his head.

"What makes you think I came alone?"

Suddenly, behind each of the four demons, an angel in a suit appeared, angel blades at the necks of the demon's hosts. Castiel said:

"If you tell me what you had intended to do with me, I will let you die quickly. If not," The angel behind the black man did something with his hand and the man screamed, high and sharp. From the black-veined glow, it looked like the angel had reached in to touch the demon's spirit. Dean winced in sympathy before the pain of the gesture left him stony-faced.

Dean swayed again and Castiel shot a worried glance his way. Dean pulled himself upright and glared straight ahead, listing to the side. Castiel returned his gaze to the lead demon, who was still grinning:

"Tell me what you know of Crowley."

The demon started, and began to laugh. "Your business partner? I think, dear angel, you know enough about him for all of us."

That didn't make much sense to Dean so he filed it away for when his teeth weren't singing with pain.

The way Castiel reacted let him know he really needed to tune in now. Cas froze, arms tensing and hands raising before dropping suddenly. He shot a horrified--and guilty?--look at Dean. Dean returned it with a questioning eyebrow: this might be important, but his vision was starting to black out. Whatever he saw in his face, Castiel turned around again to face the demons.

"Tell me of his progress opening Purgatory."

"Ask him yourself." The blond woman spat, before contorting in agony as the blank-faced angel behind her shoved her arm elbow-deep into her back.

Castiel turned and looked cooly at the lead demon.

"He makes progress. He uses the Alphas and he uses their information and he uses us."

"Why did you seek to capture me?" 

"We are not on his orders."

"Who then do you serve?"

"The all-father, our God: Lucifer in whose name the apocalypse must continue."

Castiel's shoulders relaxed.

"Rachael, Raghiel, stop." The two angels who had been lighting up their respective demons stopped and turned their gazes to Castiel.

He looked around the room at each of the demons and said:

"Kill them all."

Dean's vision had been slowly narrowing until the only clear patch was the one around Castiel's face when it turned, mouth opening to say something. The demon's screams of terror and agony followed him into the dark.

\--

Dean woke up feeling like he'd been run over by a Mac truck; twice. He was lying on his back, which he never did when he'd put himself to bed, and his shoulders were pushing at his spine and his hips felt two sizes too big for his skin. His upper arm felt scratchy--the tug and pull at his skin indicated he had a bandage over where his hand-print scar was.

He shifted his hips to make his back more comfortable and immediately regretted it as his entire lower body awoke to file pain claims with his nerves. He groaned and immediately felt the pressure of a cool hand on the side of his cheek.

Dean snapped his eyes open, expecting--he didn't know what--but he found Castiel's cool blue eyes staring into his.

Dean quickly shifted his glance away, surveying. They were alone in what looked like the master bedroom of a fancy house. Dean wiggled and found not only was he without clothes but was sitting on some high quality sheets. The blanket over his knees was white and, what was this called, a duvet. It was fluffy and warm and if he didn't feel like microwaved crap he could have enjoyed it here. Room properly sorted, he turned his head to look around and said to Castiel:

"Where am I?"

"A safe house. After I nearly lost; after we found you I thought it best for you to recover away from the fight."

"Makes sense." Dean said with a uncontrollable yawn, not particularly remembering how he'd gotten this way. Some food and some more sleep and he'd be ready to process.

"I, I have to apologize Dean--"

"Can it wait, Cas? I'm," Dean beat back another yawn, "I'm passing out again here."

"Alright, Dean." Dean felt his bed shift back from a loss of weight and heard footsteps receding over the thin carpet. He pried his eyes open and said, in a voice smaller than he'd ever like it:

"Will you stay?" Castiel froze, turning his head back without giving Dean his eyes.

"Yes, Dean, I will be here."

\--

Dean swam back into consciousness to the sound of Castiel's voice and his weight and warmth against his side.

"I will return to heaven when my business here is concluded."

"But, Castiel--"

"Rachael, leave us now."

Dean heard a most un-angel-like huff from the blond named Rachael and her heels clicking ever more softly on the tiles of the hallway. He eased his eyes open, taking in more of the anti-septic white walls and snow-gowned trees outside the window. He heard the wind tap-tapping the window screen against the frame, smelled dust and the musk of a closed house in the sheets around him, and an absurdly soft set of pillows beneath his head. He finally turned his head far enough for Cas to come into his field of view.

He looked like a blurry beige wall--a worried, blurry, beige wall now Dean could focus on his face.

"What's up, Cas?" he mumbled.

Cas looked away from him, eyes going to the open door. He pulled his hand away from where it had been resting on Dean's arm and stood. Dean felt unreasonably cold at the loss as Castiel swept the door closed and jiggled it to ensure the latch clicked in. Castiel turned his back to the door but didn't come any closer to Dean. He dropped his head, eyes still not meeting Dean's.

 _It's too early for weird angel shit_. Dean thought as he struggled to sit up. Cas started forward to help him before pulling himself back. Dean finished pulling himself up and fussed his pillows into a more comfortable arrangement behind his aching back. He looked up, and found Castiel staring at him, unmoving. Dean glanced down and around his body, trying to determine if Cas's stare-o-vision was standard issue.

 _Damn, boy_. Dean's chest and, he peaked under the covers and, _Damn_ , his entire torso and legs were covered in a patchwork of bruises ranging from startling purples to sickly yellows to disturbingly deep blacks and brown-greens. He was glad he was numb--Cas's people must have given him some pain stuff. All the pain seemed distant but his mind felt clear-ish. _Good stuff_.

He looked up, daring Cas to say something. Cas's eyes were sharp with grief, face intense in a way Dean wasn't prepared for.

"Cas, what's going on?"

Castiel leaned back against the wall, tipping his head back and entirely avoiding Dean's gaze.

"You remember what the demon said. You--" He shook his head, restarting, "Dean. There is something which I find myself unwilling to tell you but which you have already begun to learn. I do not need your approval or support but ask it. I, I want to explain myself and apologize for not telling you."

"Jeeze, Cas, way to be dramatic. What's up?"

Castiel looked at him hard, then continued. "In the warehouse, where you were--where those demons--where," his voice dropped, "When I came to you, the demons said something; they," Castiel shook his head, muttering under his breath, but still not saying whatever it was that was chewing him up.

Dean's mind was racing, soundbites from that night dropping into their brackets. Then he remembered:

"Crowley?" Dean's eyes shot up to catch Cas's for an instant before he flung them away again, staring hard at Dean's--injured--shoulder.

"Dammit Cas, look at me." Castiel's eyes stayed fixed on Dean's bandage as he said: "I have had to make, compromises. They are not what the demons think they are--"

"Cas!" Dean shouted, suddenly glad the door was closed. "Cas. What are you talking about. What. Did you make a deal with the devil? Cas?"

Castiel shook his head, looking frustrated: "He believes I did, but I did not. I do not intend to fulfill my part of our arrangement--"

"Well, that's even better. _Lying_ to the devil always goes so well."

Dean scrunched up his face, wishing he could get out of bed and shake his idiot angel.

"Dean, you must understand, the other angels--"

"Screw them, Cas. You, you can't just give up; what did you even bargain with?" It was a small thing but about the size Dean could handle right now.

"It is not of import. I need to--"

"It is of fucking import, Cas! You have to--"

"Stop interrupting me!" Castiel yelled, true voice adding a subsonic baseline which made Dean's teeth ache.

He took a breath and, surprising to all involved, shut up. He glared at Castiel and Castiel looked back at him, startled and fuming. He continued, voice soft:

"More important than you being happy with me, more important than you or I or anyone we love being safe, the world cannot descend into apocalypse again. That is what Raphael wants; that is why I am fighting against. The stakes are higher enough to warrant true sacrifice. I have agreed to allow Crowley half of the souls in Purgatory if he helps me find and open it--" Dean drew breath to interject and Castiel shot him a look and he subsided, "I will not carry through with this promise. I will take all of the souls and use them myself to end the war in Heaven and empty the racks of Hell of all but those who require additional time to be welcome into the eternal cities." He took a breath. "I am not doing what I hoped I would; I am doing what I have to, Dean. I am fighting a war. We were losing. I could not; I could not do it and watch my brothers die and my friends die on principal. I had to, compromise. To protect my family and," voice quieter still, "what friends I have left, whether they consider us friends or not in the end."

That last got Dean. His righteous anger deflated like Cas had stuck a pin in it. He nodded to Cas, resettled his shoulders and said:

"You've been working with Crowley to prevent the end of times; I get that. What I don't get is lying to me and Sam and Bobby and the Campbells about what and why."

Castiel tilted his head, eyes finally meeting Dean's: "I did not know Crowley was using you until too late. At the point," He dropped his eyes again, "I was under the impression we would have no relationship if you found I was coercing you or Sam into welcoming the devil as your assigner and I," his eyes roved the walls, searching for word, "I could not bear that."

"That's not good enough, Cas. You can't just lie to me--you need to trust me not to screw up." Dean was looking at Cas, and saw a raw look of hunger on his face.

"You need to let me in, let me help."

Castiel scoffed, "You're human Dean. I'm an angel. You cannot help me."

"Oh, no? Then you don't need information from the Alphas?" Castiel paused,

"Look, Cas, I'm not on board with this whole Up-With-Satan thing you've got going on with Crowley, but you need to talk me through until I can decide where I stand in the end, rather than assuming for me." Dean shifted his hips subtly to the side, making room next to him on the bed.

"You've got a little time. Talk me through it."

Castiel's eyes were started and wide, but he walked over to where Dean leaned and sat stiffly on the bed, arranging himself against the headboard with his feet firmly planted on the floor.

"Start from the beginning." Dean said and, surprising them both, Cas did.

\--

It took most of the night, and Dean slept more than Cas talked, but by the end he could get his head around Cas's reasoning even if it sucked. Somehow they'd lost their statutorily-imposed safety distance of 3 inches space and by the third time Dean fell asleep it was on Cas's shoulder. He woke up when the sun finally eased up his face and froze at the feeling of a trenchcoat under his cheek and regretted the movement. His body was a mass of torn muscles and ripple-bruised skin and his jerk had reminded him of it. His back spasmed but he got it under control before Cas could move away from him. He looked up and over to where the angel was sitting, shoulders still pressed tightly together.

Cas's face was simpler than he'd seen it in weeks: it was tired, it was worried, but not sneaky or conflicted or unreadable. Dean wondered how much his deception had been weighing on the angel; how much he'd had to keep back to store his secret. Those thoughts clouding his head and driven by nothing but the urge to make it better, Dean leaned even more closely into the angel and pressed a kiss into his shoulder.

Castiel froze, breath hitching and eyes terribly wide. He kept staring at Dean like he was a wild animal and Dean does it again, eyes rolled up to keep some kind of connection between them. Hopefully it's the pain meds, but he can't feel a damn thing of aching inside his bones and the pleasant warmness coming off of Castiel is simply too much for him to ignore. He's just about to lay his head back onto the angel's shoulder as the angel has given him no reaction when he feels the tingling brush of fingertips down his bare arm. Light enough to not even hint at a bruise but still firmly there.

"I never thought . . ." Castiel trailed off, eyes bright on Dean's as Dean struggled back from sleep. 

Dean raised his hand, carefully, to cover Cas's. Cas's fingers stilled on his arm, alert for the rejection of a chilling touch, when Dean pressed his hand into his arm gently, intertwining their fingers. It hurt his bruise a little, but he needed to make this point.

"There's more to us than duty, Cas. There's more to this than the war, though the war is all there is for now." Dean leaned in, lips perilously close to the angel's stubble, _Too late to turn back now, Winchester_ he thought as the angel turned his head horror-flick slowly to stare down at him.

"Whether you're here or not, I am with you."

He kissed the angel on his startled mouth, lips tight and firm and unyielding in their pressure.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a quick thing that just came out of my head. I'm not sure where it comes from and have no idea where it wanted to go. It felt done? There's a lot of feelings. It is what it is! 
> 
> The title's from one of my favorite poems about love among people of principal:
> 
> Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind  
> That from nunnery  
> Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind,  
> To war and arms I fly.
> 
> True, a mew mistress now I chase,  
> The first foe in the field;  
> And with a stronger faith embrace  
> A sword, a horse, a shield.
> 
> Yet this inconstancy is such  
> As you too shall adore;  
> I could not love thee, dear, so much,  
> Loved I not honor more.
> 
> \--Richard Lovelace, (1618–1657)
> 
> Also, come say hi on tumblr! I'm generally at jocarthage.tumblr.com


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